Page 75 of Ballad of Nightmares

“Yes,” Ana said into the box. “I should be in her file. We haven’t spoken in a while. She and I were separated as children.”

Ana had done her homework. Had seen what this girl looked like and been able to get into that hospital database. She knew Rosie had, in fact, had a sister who supposedly died at twelve, and Rose had come into Shadowmyer with their mother.

Ana could see the woman as she pushed her reading glasses up and typed away on the keyboard. Ana tapped the strap of her purse as she waited, her gaze darting down the spotless white hall to the stretch of key-locked doors.

“And your name?” the woman asked.

“Ana Smith.”

Another hesitation, and then the woman spoke. “Come to the desk with your ID.”

The door buzzed and opened for Ana. After giving her ID to the receptionist and seeing it verified, the woman had her wait in the chairs across the way. It was ten minutes before a nurse came to get her.

“You’ll be lucky to get more than a couple of words,” the nurse told Ana as they walked down the hall. “But… she’s not had many visitors in some time. Maybe your being here will give her some hope.”

“Who was her last visitor?” Ana asked.

“Ah.” The nurse gave her a small, apologetic smile. “Afraid I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you that he comes by every few months and leaves her a white rose.”

The white rose.

It was part of what the article had said this woman had babbled about after her getting caught inside the castle. White roses and shadows… wings and blood. A black cat and a beastly hound with razor fangs and a body that was half bare bone.

Did Death visit this woman? Or was it simply one of the demons, perhaps a lost lover that had once given her those roses, and she’d been confused about them, imagined them inside the castle because he’d brought her a bouquet that morning.

“Does he stay long?” Ana asked.

“No more than a few minutes,” the nurse answered. “She is usually asleep. The last time he was here, I’m afraid he had to leave early. She had one of her episodes.”

“Episodes?”

“Nightmares,” the nurse corrected. “Occasionally, she wakes up screaming.”

A chill brushed over Ana’s skin, and they turned the hall.

“When is the last you saw her?” the nurse asked.

“Almost twenty years,” Ana said softly, allowing sadness into her voice. “Our mother and father separated us during the raids of northeastern Firemoor. Father took me west. Mother took her east.”

“That’s unfortunate,” the nurse said. “To be separated like that.”

“I remember…” Ana thought of the day when she’d lost her mother. How her father had cried over her body until Ana, so young at the time, had urged him up and out of the burning house. She’d never buried her mother as she’d buried her father.

“It was,” were the only two words Ana pretended to manage as the nurse paused before a door.

She knocked, but didn’t wait on a reply as she turned the knob, and when Ana glimpsed the woman on the bed, she nearly gasped.

This…girl. No older than her, once so lovely and bright-eyed as the pictures had shown online was now gaunt. Rigid. Like her mind had been swept and she was merely a hollow shell.

Rosie was staring at the ceiling, her eyes wide and mouth open like she’d just seen a ghost. She didn’t flinch or acknowledge the opening door or the voices that spoke to her.

The nurse gave Ana a grim smile. “It’s how she sleeps,” she said solemnly. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

As the door closed, Ana sat her purse on the ground and sat at the girl’s bedside. She took in the girl’s now dulling brown skin, the untamed corkscrew curls, how lifeless her rounded eyes were, and she wondered what exactly had happened to her in that castle.

How had she come out like this? The news reports had only said she was driven insane, and she was a warning to anyone who might dare think about breaking in in the future.

“Oh, Rosie,” Ana muttered aloud as she reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “What happened to you?”